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Hello all, Just to introduce myself to this group. I am just embarking on a new watchmaking hobby as I fancied a new challenge. I’ve always had an interest in watches since being a young lad and being promised a nice watch by my Dad if I learnt to tell the time. He probably regretted how quick I learnt and he rewarded me with a new Sicura World Time watch (can’t remember the exact model but it had a black outer dial to set cities from around the world and was purchased from Leslie Davis around 1972). I now regret selling the “broken” watch on an eBay auction about 4 years ago for just £13! And so time has moved on... I have always been patient and technically-minded tinkering successfully in car mechanics and have been working in IT for the past 21 years, so hopefully have the aptitude to succeed in the new hobby. I recently purchased a nice chronograph Tissot watch for everyday use to replace my old Rotary and then started noticing all these fine old watches on ebay. In no time I had collected a few old Tissots; first quartz movements and then moving on to vintage manual winders (and driving my wife nuts!). So now I have a couple of Seastar Sevens (one to clean and oil when I have confidence), a ladies 1969 Tissot to spruce up, not repair, and an old working sporty-looking gents Oris is on the way. I have begun collecting second hand watchmaking tools, mainly Bergeon after discovering the shocking quality of new Chinese tools. And so now after buying a book ‘Practical WatchRepairing’ De Carle and becoming a Member of this forum, I am looking forward to an interesting start to a new hobby. Cheers, Adam

Looks like Jules Borel has it in stock but doesn’t recognise interchangeability with other movements http://cgi.julesborel.com/cgi-bin/matcgi2?ref=Xc[D^D http://www.julesborel.com/s.nl/it.A/id.60902/.f

Also known as "friction spring" or "sweep seconds spring".

Welcome Adam. FYI, not all Chinese tools are of poor quality, for example a Chinese tunnel demagnetizer, 6 bar pressure tester, or bench case opener are perfectly fine and will cost a third or quarter of what Bergeon asks (which is some hundreds for these).

As mentioned, 3 years is still a short time before service. Current lubricants bring the service interval to 7 years. Most owners extend it to 10 years and beyond without any issue, especially when the watch is not worn every day.

Welcome Adam, Plenty here to help you on what is just a never ending learning curve. Enjoy

Welcome to this friendly forum Adam. Practical WatchRepairing’ De Carle you couldn't do better, its a very good start. Nice to know you soon found out about tool quality. Leave the Indian rubbish tools alone as well. Dumont tweezers are the best, for basic watch work I had number 3 and for fine work number 5. Enjoy your new hobby.

Great intro Adam! I see the bug has really bitten hard already and it only gets worse. Study Mark Lovic's on line videos and make good use of the forum search function and I'm sure you will do just fine. Also remember that no question is too trivial, so if your having trouble, be sure to ask as someone will pitch in and help.

I am just starting in this hobby, so take my answer with until you'll get another from more knowledgeable people. If the watch hasn't been in any rough situations and working fine, then why gives it a service to begin with , wait a few more years and then go for it.

Probably. There are already scratches there. [emoji4] Sometimes I have to use a single edge razor blade with a metal backing to start some of those off. There is also a nifty little black tool on the bay that resembles a little crowbar that you can get from China and they work great as long as you keep the edge sharp. They provide the much needed leverage that a screwdriver tip just won’t give you and you don’t have to worry about a screwdriver blade being stuck in your hand or finger. Painful experience. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

I read your title another way, many in the field would seemingly agree, looking at their workbenches/areas.

Here we go, the max filesize is stated as being 200mb, however it is actually 2mb so I have resized the original image.